The Link Between
by antepathy
Summary: IDW, post Death of Optimus Prime, mid-MTMTE1, nongraphic interfacing, DriftxPerceptor


R  
>IDW, post Death of Optimus Prime, pre MTMTE 1<br>Drift/Perceptor  
>interfacing of an indeterminate and florid type, angst, written because I am sad that apparently my OTP is going to be separated in the new comics series.<p>

"You're not coming." Drift's voice, from the doorway. The voice Perceptor had ached to hear, in just that perfect tone of question and surprise. He was a silhouette, a gold-edged shape, contours blurred, as the corridor's light spilled over into the darkened lab, almost a phantom Perceptor had dreamed into being.

"No." No explanation. He had none, really, save that he knew he wasn't. And Drift, after all, hadn't asked why.

"We need you."

"We."

"The mission. Rodimus. The others." A long pause, and then quieter, the tone more raw, a wound unhealed, "Me."

"You don't need me." He turned, hiding his face, hating the hurt in his own voice, the kind of hurt that lashes out, yet unable to stop it. "You left."

A long, hurt hesitation, like a blade drawn over metal, cutting in. "Yes." The voice was quiet, humbled. "I left. I'm sorry."

Perceptor could feel the hope in Drift's voice, that his apology would heal things, or at least reach across that gap between them. And he wanted it, too, but he knew the impossibility of it. He turned, trying to steel his face, quench the heat of his emotion in the cold water of reality. "Drift—"

Drift strode across the room, hands clamping over the red shoulders, jerking Perceptor forward. Their mouths found each other, better able to say what needed to be said. Perceptor's own arms curled around Drift's new red spaulders, and he ached at the stubbornness that had kept him away, kept him from visiting Drift in the medbay. Parts of Drift he hardly recognized. But the mouth, the kiss, was all-too-longingly familiar.

He dreaded that Drift might ask the question again, push at his weak resolve, knowing he'd crumble, that his adoration would make him an abject fool, chasing after the mech who had fled before his clinging need.

But Drift didn't ask, simply breaking the kiss, leading Perceptor to the scientist's own quarters, surefooted as though he knew the way, keeping a hand on the small of Perceptor's back as he entered the key codes, guiding him to the berth.

They twined together, as the sounds of day fell off, giving way to the soft hum of night, coupling and tangling with each others' bodies, dancing with familiar, fragile desires, hands and mouths knowing and longing and filled with bittersweet memory.

They pulled back from release countless times, as though both feared, almost implicitly, that completion would be an end, the end, a sundering of all that was between them, a circle closed before being broken, and they sought to defy time and sense, the fearful pull of reality.

Drift roared, finally, arching up in release, something feral and free, the overload wracking his body, pleasure so deep and hard it was pain, joy so intense it was black. Perceptor, below him, curled, holding him, trying to hold this last, exquisite moment like a too-full cup, the meniscus teetering on the lip. They lay together exhausted by their vain struggle, time pulling them onward, inexorable, by a thousand tiny chains of obligations and duties, heedless and hating of what little they held to themselves.

Perceptor tried to stay awake, wanting to sweat away every last drop of memory, bottle the whole night up, render it to a husk, to try to feed his parched spirit in the bland dry forever-future that stretched before him, barren and dead as the plains outside the ship. But he failed, even at that, waking slowly from under a thin shroud of sleep, as Drift stealthily unknotted himself from Perceptor's embrace, untangling them in a deeper way than Perceptor could bear.

He felt an ache in his spark, something ripped out by the roots, the agony of a loss, an old wound reinjured, pain and regret and despair dancing black flames around him.

Drift stood, carefully, silently as only he could move. He turned, dropping to one knee, bending over Perceptor's still form.

"I wish," Drift whispered, the words so soft they were filled with the static of silence and woe, "I wish I'd been worthy of you, Perceptor." A gust of a laugh, stirring the air between them. "Maybe, when I come back…."

Perceptor's spark burned at the thought: Drift returning to him, to a world full of the peace the swordsmech had fought for all along, and so truly deserved. And he almost shifted, almost moved, almost clung to the armor, pulling it against him. But he had no right. Drift wasn't his. Drift wasn't anyone's, and claiming him like that was putting chains on magnificence.

The words quelled him, pressed him down with their magnitude and meaning, a hope, a seed, he didn't trust himself not to destroy. He wanted to cry out, to laugh, almost at the edge of hysteria, how wrong that was, how he was unworthy of Drift, how he had failed.

He could only lie weak, helpless, as the moment passed, as the mouthplates, curled for millennia in a terrorizing snarl, trembled with emotion, while a hand, battered and rough from a thousand unnamed battles, brushed his cheek.

Drift bent lower, and Perceptor's lips ached for a kiss, one last joining, in the last shreds of night. But the mouth strayed from his. Only Drift's heavy nasal rested across his cheek, the gold crest on his audio, Drift bent over him in supplication.

"Be happy." A brush on his cheek, air, or a kiss so soft it felt like air. "Be happy. Be safe." A catch in the voice, a click of pain. "Be loved, Perceptor."

He felt a hot plash on his cheek, a flash of blue, and then a rush of movement, all too fast to process: Drift rising abruptly, reaching for his swords, and then he was again, nothing but a silhouette, a shadow, a ghost.

And all that Perceptor had of the night was a handful of memories, and a tiny vial that he kept with him always, stoppered and sealed. He allowed himself, rarely, as though parceling out the pain of hope, to take it out, to hold it up and let the light coruscate and shimmer within it, and he'd allow himself to wonder where Drift was, what he was doing, and if he ever, ever, spent a sleepless night of yearning.

All he had, tangible and real, was that one tear to feed his aching need, a liquid bond between them.

And he was grateful for it.


End file.
